Lonely wolf? Wolves howl when they miss their friends

Wolves are skilled and ferocious hunters, but when it it comes to relationships, they’re real softies. When a playmate or partner leaves the pack, the wolves that are left behind will howl and howl and howl.

In a new study, researchers report that wolves will give their leaders and their closest allies a longer and stronger serenade if they leave. Those howls could be sonic breadcrumbs, meant to help a lone wolf find its way back to the pack. They could also be a long-distance message that simply says: “I miss you.”

“What exactly their motivation is, we will never know,” said Friederike Range, an animal behavior researcher at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna and one of the authors of the study in Current Biology. But “there is an emotional response in there, for sure,” she told NBC News…